My plan is to post translations of and comments on Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Please feel free to comment.

Friday, November 30, 2007

6.36 If there were a law of causality, then it could read: “There are laws of nature.”

But of course one cannot say that: it shows itself.

So is there no such law?What about 6.321?Physics unapplied is quite formal, and empty.Perhaps that is the point.For “There are laws of nature” to be a law of physics would be utterly pointless (a pointless utterance).Instead, physics tells us various laws of nature.Without such action/application the “law” would be quite empty, lacking content (what laws of nature?).With it, it loses any point it might have.

Black (p. 362): “W. should probably be read here as denying the significance of any notion of ‘causality’ (cf. his denial of the ‘causal nexus’ at 5.136).He might have agreed with other writers on the philosophy of science that the laymen’s notion of ‘cause’ comes to be superseded by a notion of ‘law’, adding a caveat about the latter being a formal notion.”